[Amy]

TJ Max,

Yes, I am familiar with this write-up. It is unfortunate that the author neglected to disclose more information about the circumstances of his listening experience.

I'm typically not one to dispute a review--if they are done fairly, then we accept the outcome and move on. If they are critical, we take them seriously and try to improve upon the product. But this one simply wasn't done fairly, in my view.

First, this was done at a very large press event, which was extremely noisy, and our booth was quite crowed. The press literally had the opportunity to get a proper fit, listen, and judge in less than 60 seconds. As anyone on here knows, the over-the-ear IE models need much more time to achieve the right fit. They didn't even have time try different tips--it's highly doubtful that they had anything resembling a good seal.

Second, he used the iPhone at max volume. We do not recommend anyone do that.

Third, when this write up came out, we contacted the authors to see if they would be willing to receive a review sample of headphones to try over a much longer period of time, and they weren't interested.

We did learn a quick and hard lesson about the headphone business early on, however, and that is how we present the headphones to the press. That part was absolutely our error.